In this bulletin:

• Afghan interior minister survives attack: ministry
• 2 Polish soldiers killed in Afghanistan
• US aid worker, Afghan colleague apparently killed: employer
• $100 million boost pegged for aid to Afghanistan
• Sarkozy wants troops deployed with U.S. in Afghanistan
• Military shuffle could aid Harper's Afghan plan
• UN Voices Concern over Afghans in Iran Border Province
• Al-Qaeda Directing Terrorist Groups on Afghan Border, U.S. Says
• US cautions Pakistan over Taleban
• Detained Afghan journalist employed by CTV declared unlawful enemy combatant
• Lawyer says Afghan man charged in New York drug case turned over missiles
• Afghanistan strategy a concern - Clark
• UNHCR protection chief launches fresh look at Afghan situation
• Afghanistan: Poverty pushing youth into arms of Taliban?
• Roger Cohen: the long haul in Afghanistan
• Afghanistan: Clashes in Helmand leave civilians dead, displaced
• Geopolitical Intelligence Report: Al Qaeda, Afghanistan and the Good War
• Shabana's story of hope against the odds
  

Afghan interior minister survives attack: ministry

(AFP) 27 February 2008- Afghanistan's interior minister Wednesday survived an attack on his convoy, while clashes killed several civilians and Taliban militants around the country, the interior ministry said.

Interior Minister Zarar Ahmad Moqbel's armoured convoy was shot at about 50 kilometres (30 miles) outside of the relatively secure capital Kabul, his spokesman said, adding they had only learned of the incident afterwards.

"We received reports there was some shooting from the mountain on one or two vehicles," spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP. Police were investigating if the attack had been aimed at the minister, he said.

Bashary, who was travelling with the convoy, said even the minister did not realise that firing took place and no one was hurt in the attack in which Afghan media reports said rocket- and gun-fire were used to ambush the delegation.

Meanwhile there were new fears for the fate of a US aid worker and her Afghan driver kidnapped in the southern city of Kandahar a month ago as their employer said it had unconfirmed information they had been killed.

In the eastern province of Khost meanwhile, a bomb blamed on Taliban fighters blew up a civilian pick-up truck, wounding a dozen people -- including women and children, a district police chief said.

One of the wounded died in hospital and six others were in a critical condition, Yaqoobi district chief Lutfullah Babakarkhail told AFP. "This is the work of Taliban," he said.

A similar remote-controlled bomb in the same area killed five policemen -- all from the same family -- and a young boy on Tuesday.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which is helping Afghan troops confront the Taliban, meanwhile confirmed that two of its soldiers were killed in another bombing the adjacent province of Paktika Tuesday.

The Polish military announced late Tuesday that two of its soldiers were killed in the blast and a third wounded. ISAF also said Wednesday that eight Taliban fighters were killed in operations over the past three days in the southern province of Helmand.

The force, which includes soldiers from around 40 countries, rejected claims that it had killed civilians in the operation around the Kajaki Dam -- a vital water and power source.

However rocket fired by insurgents in the area had left five civilians dead on Monday, the separate US-led coalition said.

The Australian military reported separately that its soldiers in the southern province of Uruzgan had in the past days repelled a number of Taliban attacks on a project to build a base for Afghan soldiers.

And the Afghan army said two of its soldiers were killed in a clash with rebels on Tuesday in Kandahar province. The Taliban were in government between 1996 and 2001, when they were removed for not handing over their allies in the Al-Qaeda network after the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

2 Polish soldiers killed in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) 27 February 2008 - A roadside bomb killed two Polish soldiers patrolling in eastern Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday, while NATO announced the seizure of $400 million in opium in the south.

The explosion hit the troops in the Sharan district of Paktika province on Tuesday, said NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

The Polish troops were returning from a humanitarian aid meeting in a village when their Humvee drove over a roadside mine, Maj. Dariusz Kacperczyk, spokesman for the Polish army operational command, said in Warsaw.

The two soldiers killed were identified as Cpl. Szymon Slowik and Pvt. Hubert Kowalewski. One soldier was also wounded. Poland has about 1,200 troops in Afghanistan.

The latest deaths bring the number of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan to 21 this year, according to an Associated Press tally of figures from ISAF and the U.S.-led coalition.

In 2007, insurgency-related violence killed more than 6,500 people, including 222 foreign troops. Last year was the deadliest yet since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

Paktika borders Pakistan's lawless tribal region, which is used by militants as a base to plan and launch attacks inside Afghanistan.

Despite the latest deaths, U.S. military officials insisted Wednesday the province has made great strides since the deployment of foreign troops. The government has extended its reach into areas that had no government presence before, roads have been built and more children are going to school, officials said.

"When we arrived in 2005 there was not one kilometer of road in Paktika province," said Lt. Col. Michael Fenzel, a U.S. military commander. "Now we have over 300 kilometers of road, and they are opening up commerce between ... districts."

NATO and Afghan soldiers, meanwhile, discovered and destroyed a massive opium haul during a patrol last week in the Sangin district of southern Helmand province, ISAF said in a statement issued late Tuesday.

The troops found 1.65 tons of opium — which ISAF said was worth $400 million — and a "significant quantity" of drug-making equipment last Thursday, it said. The $400 million figure appeared to be the opium's estimated street value once it was trafficked outside Afghanistan.

Helmand, the front line of the bloodiest battles in recent years between militants and foreign forces, is the world's largest opium-producing region.

Officials estimate that up to 40 percent of proceeds from Afghanistan's drug trade — an amount worth tens of millions of dollars — is used to fund the insurgency.

In other violence, a remote-controlled bomb hit a civilian vehicle Wednesday in eastern Khost province, killing the driver and wounding six people, said Khost public health chief Dr. Mohammadin Mohammadi.

A rocket attack on an Afghan National Army patrol killed two soldiers and wounded six others Tuesday in the Maiwand district of southern Kandahar province, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement.

Seven insurgents were killed in two separate clashes in Helmand on Monday, the ministry statement said. A rocket fired by insurgents in the Kajaki region of Helmand province killed five Afghan civilians on Monday, the U.S.-led coalition said.

US aid worker, Afghan colleague apparently killed: employer

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) — A US aid worker and her Afghan colleague kidnapped in southern Afghanistan a month ago have been killed, their employer has said, citing unconfirmed information received in recent days.

Afghan police and the governor of the southern city of Kandahar, where the two were snatched on January 26, on Wednesday could not immediately confirm the statement posted on the Asian Rural Life Development Foundation's website.

"We are deeply grieved to report the apparent deaths of Muhammad Hadi and Cyd Mizell, workers who were kidnapped by gunmen on January 26 in Kandahar, Afghanistan," said the statement posted Tuesday.

"Although we have no confirmation of their deaths, we have received information over the past few days indicating that our two aid workers have been killed," it said.

Mizell, 50, and Hadi were seized while travelling to work. Their disappearance has remained a mystery as no group, including the extremist Taliban movement involved in several kidnappings, has claimed to have them.

$100 million boost pegged for aid to Afghanistan

February 27, 2008 - Allan WoodsOttawa Bureau, Toronto Star

OTTAWA–Canada will have an additional $100 million to spend on Afghanistan as part of a budget plan to boost international aid.

The one-time spending increase announced in the federal budget will go primarily toward security initiatives, like training the Afghan police and army. But part of the money could also be used for more traditional aid and development projects, officials with the Canadian International Development Agency said.

The additional funds bring to $280 million the total aid Canada will have for Afghanistan in 2008-09 and will boost the country's projected 10-year financial commitment to $1.3 billion.

The new money is also politically significant, coming at a time when Parliament is considering whether to extend Canada's stay in Kandahar province to 2011. The Liberal party says it is willing to support the Conservative government's proposal so long as Canadian efforts are focused exclusively on training and development after the current mission, primarily a counter-insurgency effort, comes to an end in February 2009.

Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae said the question is not about how much money is being spent, but how it is being spent.

"There's enough money in the system, in the defence budget and in CIDA's budget to do what we need to do," he said. "It's really about the focus of the mission. It's about the political will to reorganize the mission and to do that in co-operation with a number of other NATO countries that we have to work with in order to make it happen."

The Canadian Forces are also getting more money out of this budget, in the form of an automatic annual increase in defence spending to 2 per cent from 1.5 per cent. Coming into effect in 2011-12, it will give the forces approximately $12 billion over the next two decades to buy new equipment to keep up with military advances.

Beyond Afghanistan, which is Canada's top foreign aid recipient, the 2008 budget also promises to follow through on a pledge – first made in last year's budget – to double Canada's international assistance to $5 billion by 2010-11.

Part of that extra funding will complete Canada's pledge – one made by all G8 nations – to double aid to Africa to $2.1 billion in 2008-09. The Conservatives have been accused by development organizations of neglecting the continent, but the budget says Canada will outpace its G8 partners in meeting the African-aid goal one year earlier than other countries in the organization of leading industrial nations.

However, the government warns that any additional aid pledges will be subject to more rigorous standards, something that was first laid out last year.

In the 2007 budget, the government announced it would send aid dollars to fewer countries, with the aim of being among the largest five donors in the recipient states. It also vowed to make Canadian aid more efficient by reducing administrative costs and increasing accountability.

But more than a year later, Canadians are still waiting for more details on the proposed reform. The 2008 budget promises more details from International Development Minister Bev Oda "soon."

Sarkozy wants troops deployed with U.S. in Afghanistan

France suggests sending forces to the east, not the south with Canadians

DOUG SAUNDERS - February 27, 2008 Globe and Mail

LONDON -- As Canadian soldiers prepare for three more years in the deadly south of Afghanistan, signs are emerging that they won't be joined by a hoped-for contingent of French troops.

Earlier this month, France suggested that it might send soldiers southward to answer Canada's demand for 1,000 more NATO troops if it is to continue its mission there.

But aides to President Nicolas Sarkozy suggested yesterday that while France is serious about increasing its commitment to the Afghan war and playing a larger combat role, he is likely more interested in deploying troops to the east of Afghanistan, to fight alongside U.S. soldiers.

France has about 2,000 troops in Afghanistan - most of them stationed around Kabul and not engaged in active combat.

The handful of NATO countries that are directly fighting the Taliban insurgency in the south, including Canada, Britain, the United States and the Netherlands, have encountered stiff Taliban resistance, with Canada suffering the highest casualty rate, and have been imploring other NATO countries for assistance.

Mr. Sarkozy's inclination now, leaked to the Paris newspaper Le Monde yesterday in what defence officials called a "policy trial balloon," is to play a stronger and more visible role in international military affairs, particularly in collaboration with the United States.

French defence experts familiar with Mr. Sarkozy's advisers confirmed that the Élysée Palace, Mr. Sarkozy's office, is considering this eastward option, but that there are dissenting views and that the President has not yet made up his mind. However, the "plan Canadien" seems increasingly unlikely.

"I doubt that the new, strengthened French force will go in the south; it will be in the east, close to Waziristan and the Pakistani border area," said Yves Boyer, director of the French Society for Military Studies. "I doubt the Élysée will want troops to go to the south. To go to the south is just to act as a fill-in, a stopgap, which is not a role the French want to play."

However, the eastern plan, if adopted by Mr. Sarkozy, could still aid the Canadians. According to French reports, his staff is discussing a plan whereby perhaps 1,000 French troops would go to eastern Afghanistan to replace U.S. forces there, who in turn would be moved to Kandahar to fight alongside the Canadians, thus fulfilling Prime Minster Stephen Harper's demand for more NATO forces there.

Mr. Sarkozy wants to use the Afghan war to make a dramatic display of France's muscular new military role in the world, French officials said, and he had hoped to use a key NATO conference in Bucharest in April to make a splash.

But France has committed troops to assist in bringing peace to the Darfur region of Sudan and Chad, and Kosovo's declaration of independence has required thousands more NATO troops to be stationed in the former Serbian province. That, along with the almost 14,000 troops France currently has deployed in world conflicts, has severely limited his ability to do anything dramatic in Afghanistan, a situation faced by several other European states.

"He has to balance things. There are French troops going to Kosovo, to Darfur and Chad, to the Ivory Coast," Mr. Boyer said.

"So the number of forces that France can deploy will remain limited, and it will have to be more in terms of special forces and airpower than having a huge number of people on the ground."

Military shuffle could aid Harper's Afghan plan

France expected to deploy 700 soldiers to volatile Pakistan border region

Last Updated: Tuesday, February 26, 2008 | CBC

A possible plan to send French troops to eastern Afghanistan could provide Ottawa with the extra NATO support it's demanding as a condition to extend the Canadian mission in the region.

Canadian officials had been hoping that France would deploy a large number of soldiers to southern Afghanistan's Kandahar region, where 2,500 Canadian troops are already stationed.

According to a report published in France's daily newspaper Le Monde, French President Nicolas Sarkozy instead wants to send troops to eastern Afghanistan along the border with Pakistan. The area is considered dangerous and has seen much recent fighting. That move could indirectly help the Canadian forces, NATO sources told CBC News. 

A scenario the alliance has worked on envisions French soldiers replacing American soldiers in the east, with the Americans shifting to support the Canadians in the south, the CBC's David Common reported. "It's a game of military musical chairs," Commons said.

In Ottawa, Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier admitted Canada needed help and said the government was working hard to find it.

"I am optimistic that in the near future, we'll find a partner with us in Kandahar," he said Tuesday, the second day of debate on a motion to extend Canada's mission in Afghanistan to 2011.

The motion is contingent on two key recommendations of the Manley report on Canada's role in Afghanistan: that NATO allies provide 1,000 extra troops and that Ottawa secure access to unmanned surveillance drones and large helicopters to ferry Canadian troops around the region.

NDP defence critic Dawn Black said if the French paper has it right, it would be bad news for a mission she said is too focused on fighting the Taliban.

The government has gone to Europe several times "begging" other nations to come to its aid in Kandahar, Black said, only to be turned down at every corner.

Sarkozy is said to still be mulling over the final decision, which will be announced when NATO heads of state meet in early April in Bucharest, Romania. France already has about 1,100 troops in Kabul.

NATO's chief military adviser, Gen. Ray Henault, said last week he believes other countries will be able to contribute the extra troops that Canada requires to extend its mission.

UN Voices Concern over Afghans in Iran Border Province

TEHRAN (AFP)27 February 2008--The U.N. refugee agency Wednesday expressed concern about tens of thousands of Afghan refugees who risk expulsion from an Iranian frontier province.

Iran last year declared the province of Sistan Baluchestan bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan a "no go area" for foreigners, meaning refugees must quit the area whether they are legally registered or not.

Visiting U.N. Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees Erika Feller said 53, 000 Afghan refugees risked being expelled from the country as illegals for failing to come forward for a new registration there.

"These are people who for one reason or another may end up 'illegal' as they were not able to comply with the registration requirement," she told reporters.

The head of the Interior Ministry's bureau for alien and foreign immigrant affairs, Taghi Ghaemi, confirmed that all Afghans in Sistan Baluchestan who had failed to register would be seen as illegal and expelled.

"Fifty-three thousand did not register under any circumstances," said Ghaemi at a joint news conference after talks with Feller.

"Therefore since refugees in every country must obey the law of that country...we can say they have violated our laws and regulations and are now regarded as illegals and must leave the country."

Feller however countered that from the point of view of the U.N. they were still refugees.

"I think it is probably fair to add...that from the perspective of UNHCR these people remain refugees even though they are in an irregular situation. "This is what we want to work out over the coming months," she said.

Iran had sparked international concern by embarking on a drive to expel the around 1 million Afghan refugees residing without registration papers.

Tens of thousands of Afghans have been expelled since the drive began in April 2007 but Iran has now pledged to freeze the process during the harsh winter period following complaints from Kabul.

Feller emphasized she didn't discuss the situation of these 1 million refugees with Ghaemi without proper papers living in Iran as "it is not part of our responsibility.

Iran has expressed frustration with the condemnation of its crackdown on illegal refugees, arguing that no European country had provided sanctuary to such a large number of refugees for so long.

"We have exercised a lot of restraint but as more people have been coming (to Iran) we will have to put in place our regulations very strongly in the future," said Ghaemi.

Millions of Afghans, mostly Shiite Hazara or Sunni Persian-speaking Tajiks, fled to Iran from the wars that devastated Afghanistan from the Soviet invasion to the Taliban. At the peak, Iran was hosting around 4 million Afghans.

Iran is working with the United Nations and Afghanistan to repatriate the 910, 000 registered refugees remaining but the numbers signing up to the scheme have dwindled to a trickle amid worsening security conditions in Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda Directing Terrorist Groups on Afghan Border, U.S. Says

Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network is funding Islamic militant groups on Afghanistan's border with Pakistan and coordinating attacks against international troops, the U.S. military said.

``We are seeing an increase in cooperation between the insurgents,'' Major General David Rodriguez, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, told reporters at the Pentagon yesterday. Al-Qaeda is the ``central player in the terrorism equation.''

Three Pakistani groups are among those battling NATO-led forces in eastern Afghanistan, including the Pakistani Taliban alliance led by Baitullah Mehsud, Rodriguez said yesterday.

The U.S. says al-Qaeda has a haven in Pakistan's tribal regions and is critical of President Pervez Musharraf's efforts to combat terrorism. Pakistan says it is winning the fight against extremism and announced yesterday it has arrested more than 440 terrorists in the past three months.

Militant groups are ``getting resourcing, mainly from al- Qaeda,'' Rodriguez said by videoconference from Afghanistan, according to a transcript. ``They're cross-fertilizing their tactics, techniques and procedures.''

Lashkar-e-Toiba, a group fighting Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir state, and Maulana Fazlullah's Tehrik Nefaz-I-Shariat Muhammad, are also fighting North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Afghanistan, Rodriguez said.

Fazlullah is a cleric seeking to impose Islamic law in Pakistan's Swat Valley, a once popular tourist destination about 250 kilometers (150 miles) from the capital, Islamabad.

Mehsud has been operating for several years in command of as many as 5,000 fighters and formed an alliance of about five pro-Taliban groups in December, known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, according to a report by the Combating Terrorism Center of the U.S. military academy at West Point.

Mehsud was blamed by Musharraf's government for the Dec. 27 assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto.

Pakistani security forces arrested an al-Qaeda linked militant in connection with an attempt to assassinate Bhutto in the southern city of Karachi in October, according to Agence France-Presse. At least 136 people were killed in the twin suicide bomb attack on Bhutto's homecoming parade.

Qari Saifullah Akhtar was detained two days ago, the news agency reported, citing Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz, without providing further details.

Law enforcement agencies have arrested 442 terrorists and more than 60 people suspected of planning suicide attacks across the country in the past three months, the official Associated Press of Pakistan cited Information Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema as saying yesterday.

Explosives, weapons, hand grenades and rocket launchers were also seized, he said.

US cautions Pakistan over Taleban

(BBC) 27 February 2008 - The US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said that any new government in Pakistan should be wary of holding talks with pro-Taleban insurgents.

Mr Gates told the BBC the previous administration's efforts to negotiate with the militants had not worked out.

Opposition parties are uniting to form Pakistan's next government after faring well in last week's polls. President Pervez Musharraf's allies fared poorly. Speaking in Delhi, Mr Gates said the polls had been bad for Mr Musharraf.

But Mr Gates said the US hoped to continue working with the man he described as the elected president of Pakistan.

President Musharraf was re-elected to the presidency last year in a parliamentary vote boycotted by opposition parties as unconstitutional.

The former general has been a key US ally in the "war on terror" but his domestic popularity has plummeted amid accusations of incompetence and authoritarianism.

The army has been locked in a faltering campaign against Islamist pro-Taleban militants based along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, particularly in the Waziristan region.

Mr Gates said a new government would have to face the reality that al-Qaeda militants and insurgents were operating along the frontier. "Even the Musharraf government tried talking and doing deals in Waziristan. That didn't work out very well," he said.

"Maybe this new government in Pakistan will have to go through the same experience itself." Opposition leaders have hinted they are willing to talk to the insurgents, with a view to drawing them into the political process.

Meanwhile, the opposition parties hoping to form Pakistan's next government have urged President Musharraf to approve a new parliament. The call was made in Islamabad at a gathering of opposition MPs, billed as a show of force.

A spokesman for the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), which won the most seats in the elections, said the meeting was "a public demonstration of the strength of the democratic forces in the parliament and their determination to push ahead with their agenda".

Farhatullah Babar told the Associated Press news agency that parliament ought be convened in early March.

"There is no escape from it. I don't think Musharraf can in any way delay that." The PPP and its chief coalition ally, the PML-N, are trying to attract independent MPs in an effort to secure a two-thirds majority in parliament.

Such a majority would increase their leverage over President Musharraf - though it is unclear if they will seek to oust him. Both main opposition parties - until recently, bitter rivals - are associated with former prime ministers of Pakistan.

The PPP is led by Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of former PM Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in December. The PML-N is led by Nawaz Sharif, who led the country until he was ousted in 1999 in a military coup engineered by the then-Gen Musharraf.

Detained Afghan journalist employed by CTV declared unlawful enemy combatant

(CP) KABUL - An Afghan journalist working for Canada's CTV television network in Afghanistan has been designated an unlawful enemy combatant, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

The journalist, Jawed Ahmad, has been held without charge for the last four months at the U.S. military compound in Bagram, 50 kilometres north of Kabul.

Maj. Chris Belcher, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, told The Associated Press that an "enemy combatant review board" had "credible information" that Ahmad was dangerous to foreign troops and the Afghan government.

Belcher declined to provide details about the information. He also refused to say where the review took place of if Ahmad had been represented by counsel.

"He was afforded an opportunity to provide a statement to the board, and the board determined there was credible information to detain him as an unlawful enemy combatant," Belcher said.

"As an unlawful enemy combatant, he posed a threat to coalition forces and the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan," Belcher said, adding that "Mr. Ahmad was in no way targeted because of his work as a journalist."

About 20 established journalists working with the foreign media in Kandahar have tried without success to get information about why Ahmad was detained.

Ahmad has said the U.S. military believes he had contacts with local Taliban leaders and had a video of Taliban materials, according to his brother Siddique, who has been in touch with the CPJ.

It is common for journalists in Afghanistan to have contact information with Taliban spokesmen so they can seek comment on news stories.

Siddique told the CPJ that Ahmad was arrested when he went to Kandahar airport for what he thought was a meeting with his CTV colleagues. It's unclear who called him.

CTV officials have said their correspondent, Paul Workman, was in Kandahar at the time but was not planning to meet with Ahmad that day.

"Since his disappearance in late October, CTV News has been deeply concerned about Jojo Yazemi's whereabouts and well being," Robert Hurst, president of CTV News, told the CPJ in an e-mail message included in a news release earlier this month.

"CTV News has made inquires to NATO, Canadian, and U.S. military officials. No information has been forthcoming. CTV News has also made representations to the International Committee of the Red Cross and diplomatic channels including the Canadian Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan."

Ahmad had only worked in journalism for one year, according to New York Times correspondent Carlotta Gall, who knows him and his brother from her reporting trips to Kandahar.

"All of the local press corps have numbers of the Taliban and interview them regularly," she told the CPJ. "Jawed had nothing more than the others in the way of contacts with the Taliban."

Ahmad's case is the latest instance of the U.S. military arresting without charge a journalist in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq.

In most cases, the journalists have been freed. However, Iraqi journalist Bilal Hussein, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press photographer, has been held by the U.S. military without charge for 22 months.

Pentagon spokesmen have alleged that Hussein had close contact with terrorists. In December, an Iraqi magistrate began hearings on whether the case should be referred to a trial court.

Sami al-Haj, a Sudanese cameraman for the Al-Jazeera TV network, has been held at the military prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without charge or trial for over five years.

Al-Haj was detained by military forces in Pakistan in 2002 and turned over to the U.S. military, which classified him as an enemy combatant and accused him of transporting money in the 1990s for a charity that provided funding to Chechen rebels.

Lawyer says Afghan man charged in New York drug case turned over missiles

NEW YORK - A man prosecutors portray as an Afghan drug lord with ties to the Taliban turned over thousands of arms including Stinger missiles to the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks, his lawyer said in court papers.

The lawyer, Ivan Stephan Fisher, asked that drug charges be dropped against his client, Bashir Noorzai, who awaits trial in Manhattan. Fisher said Noorzai was duped into visiting the United States in April 2005 for a "vacation" only to be arrested.

Noorzai, who was on the U.S. list of most wanted drug kingpins, has been accused of smuggling $50 million worth of heroin into the United States with the backing of the Taliban. Fisher said Noorzai was not a drug dealer and can be heard on tapes insisting so.

He said Noorzai met with CIA agents beginning in 1990 and helped them retrieve a dozen U.S. Stinger missiles that were supplied to Pakistan to support the insurgency against the Russian-controlled communist government in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

In the court papers filed under seal in August and publicly released Tuesday, Fisher said Noorzai replaced his father as an Afghan tribal chief in 2000.

After the 2001 terrorist attacks, Noorzai tried to help establish a U.S.-supported government in Afghanistan by meeting with U.S. military representatives and instructing his tribe to collect and store all weaponry and munitions, Fisher said.

In January 2002, Noorzai turned over 3,000 arms, including 400 anti-aircraft missiles, to U.S. forces, he said in the court papers.

Fisher said Noorzai was asked by U.S. officials to arrange a meeting with a Taliban foreign minister, which he did, only to have his reputation and influence with his people badly damaged when the minister was taken into custody, he said.

Still thinking he was helping U.S. forces, Noorzai convinced a tribal leader to return to Afghanistan from Pakistan, where he was hiding, the lawyer said. But the tribal leader was killed in his home during a U.S. raid, leading Noorzai to fear for his own life, he said.

In December 2001, U.S. authorities took Noorzai into custody and questioned him for six days, Fisher said.

In September 2004, U.S. agents told Noorzai they were working on a special project to identify funds supporting terrorism and invited him to the United States to help with the probe, he said.

Fisher said the agents asked Noorzai to "take a vacation" to the United States for two weeks to meet with people in Washington for further discussions. He was questioned for 11 days in a Manhattan hotel and then was arrested on drug charges.

Since his arrest, Noorzai has continually tried to provide further information and co-operation but without favourable results, the lawyer said.

At a hearing earlier this month, lawyers for the government acknowledged there may have been tricks but insisted nothing violated Noorzai's rights.

"A breached promise that does not involve a promise of immunity would merely be a lure, a deception," Assistant U.S. Attorney David O'Neil said.

U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain said at the hearing that the case raises issues of law that had not been addressed by the courts before. She has not ruled. The government had no comment on the court papers revealed Tuesday.

Afghanistan strategy a concern - Clark

Staff New Zealand 27 February 2008 - Prime Minister Helen Clark has weighed in behind a growing chorus of international concern about the Nato-led strategy against the war on terror in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan was among issues discussed by Miss Clark and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at their first formal meeting in Canberra yesterday.

The Australian Government has been critical of the strategy in Afghanistan, and has called for a solution that goes beyond the military action to encompass new democratic, health and economic institutions.

New Australian Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon says a new strategy is needed if efforts there are not to "count for nought".

Asked yesterday if New Zealand shared Australian concerns, Miss Clark said the Nato operations needed to be focused on more than a "military presence".

"It is about supporting development and it is about opening up a political space."

Asked if Nato was not doing enough to aid development, Miss Clark said Nato had been formed when there was a Warsaw Pact. "I think with its United Nations mandate in Afghanistan, it needs to be consciously building up the development and reconciliation arm of the strategy."

The United Nations needed to build up a strategy of reconciliation, she said. She would raise these concerns at a Nato conference in Europe in April, in light of the growing international consensus about the need for a new approach.

UNHCR protection chief launches fresh look at Afghan situation

By Jennifer Pagonis

TEHRAN, Islamic Republic of Iran, February 27 (UNHCR) – The deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan and the difficulty in sustaining their lives back in their country is making Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan reluctant to return home.

The matter has been addressed by UNHCR's top protection official, Erika Feller, who wraps up a five-day mission to the Islamic Republic of Iran on Wednesday after travelling around the country to meet refugees and reflect with the Iranian authorities on the way forward in this new phase of the Afghan refugee situation.

"What has struck me during this visit is the variety of situations Afghan refugees are living in and the fact that the lack of security in Afghanistan is topmost in influencing their decisions to return home," Feller, UNHCR's Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, said after visiting the south-eastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan, the north-east city of Mashad near the border with Afghanistan, and the region surrounding Tehran.

There are some 920,000 refugees from Afghanistan in Iran. Many have been here for more than 20 years, fleeing successive waves of conflict in their home country from the 1979 Soviet invasion through to the 1996-2001 Taliban rule.

"During the peak of the refugee returns in 2004 there were up to 5,000 people a day going home to Afghanistan. In 2007, that number of refugees went home during the course of the year. So, we are at a turning point and have to reflect on the way forward with the Iranian authorities for those remaining here," Feller noted. More than 1.5 million Afghans have returned home since 2002, including 846,000 with help from UNHCR.

"Iran has hosted Afghan refugees on its territory for more than two decades and has a very solid track record in providing assistance. The refugees generally have access to basic health care and education and have not been under the threat of forced return," said Feller. "I heard many times how refugees feel part of this culture with a number being born here and knowing no other life," she added.

Refugees that Feller spoke to in various parts of the country listed their main concerns about returning home as lack of security, employment, education, health clinics and access to land in Afghanistan.

"Investing in education, the skills and capacity of the refugees is really important so they can make a real contribution back home in Afghanistan to rebuilding their country, or – if they go to a new country – in restarting their lives," said Feller, who met a number of refugee students keen to continue their education.

In October, Sistan-Baluchistan was declared a no-go area (NGA) for refugees and foreigners because of the criminality in the region, including drug smuggling, human trafficking and terrorism. Afghan refugees are concerned about facing a choice of relocation inside Iran, either to camps or cities, or going back to an untenable situation in Afghanistan.

"One by-product of this could be the possible loss of refugee status for people making this choice," said Feller.

Some 83,000 refugees live in Sistan-Baluchistan, including Mohamed Rustum, who resides with his family in the Shir Abad slum area of the provincial capital, Zahedan. "Why should I go back to Afghanistan? There I have neither earth nor sky," he told Feller. Mohamed said that, like many illiterate Afghans in Zahedan, he worked as a day labourer to support his family.

Under the NGA relocation scheme, some refugees, such as students or those with medical conditions, can move to cities. But the refugees fear losing the supportive environment they currently live in and are scared they will be unable to integrate into urban or camp life.

"They chose to live in this area because of its culture. They feel very comfortable here, like they are in Afghanistan. This idea of camps is very strange to them," said a UNHCR staff member in Zahedan. Some refugees said they felt unwelcome in the cities because they had no relatives there.

Afghan women refugees, who can work informally and move around freely in Iran, fear they would face restrictions in Afghanistan. A number of them work as housemaids in Iranian homes, something they could not do in Afghanistan.

Feller also discussed the refugees' concerns with the government refugee body – the Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigration Affairs – and the challenges of the future. She hopes to visit Afghanistan and Pakistan in the coming months to get a full overview of the Afghan refugee situation.

The review of the Afghan situation is part of a UNHCR initiative to have a fresh look at various protracted refugee situations around the world.

Afghanistan: Poverty pushing youth into arms of Taliban?

LASHKARGAH, 27 February 2008 (IRIN) - Abdul Malik, aged 17, joined Taliban insurgents in the south after two Taliban supporters gave him a mobile phone. A short while later his dead body was brought to his family.

"He was killed in a military operation near Musa Qala District (Helmand Province)," Malik's older brother told IRIN in Lashkargah, the provincial capital of Helmand Province.

"In our district many young guys join Taliban ranks for pocket money, a mobile phone or other financial incentives," said Safiullah, a resident of Sangeen District in Helmand.

Helmand Province has seen considerable insurgency-related violence - hundreds have died in suicide attacks, roadside explosions and military operations over the past few months.

High levels of rural poverty or unemployment are probably helping to drive young people like Malik to join the Taliban.

Due to insecurity in the southern provinces there are no available unemployment figures. However, a report by Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission on the social and economic rights of Afghans estimated that in some parts of the country the unemployment rate was as high as 60 percent.

Another reason why there are so many rural poor is the fact that agriculture, which employs over 60 percent of the estimated 26.6 population, has received only US$300-400 million of the over US$15 billion of international development aid given to Afghanistan since 2002, Oxfam International reported in January.

"The government (of Afghanistan) lacks the funds to provide for its citizens and is unable to create sustainable job opportunities for a large proportion of the population. Therefore, the south is a rapidly growing recruitment ground for the Taliban," the Senlis Council, a London-based international policy think tank, said in a report in February 2008.

"Where the government is failing to provide basic services, often the Taliban are filling the gap with more radical alternatives. This means that sought-after trust from the Afghan people is going to the radical militants rather than the elected government," said the report Afghanistan - Decision Point 2008.

"Research undertaken by The Senlis Council since 2005 shows conclusively that aid destined for the south is not reaching the people," the report said.

Edward Girardet, a commentator on humanitarian issues and a programme director for the Geneva-based Media21 Global Journalism Network, told IRIN that immediately after the demise of the Taliban regime Afghans had high expectations for a rapid rebuilding of their country and a positive change in their living conditions.

However, six years on there is an enormous amount of frustration, "particularly among young Pashtuns who have returned from Pakistan (where there is strong Taliban influence in Islamic schools) only to find no jobs," he said.

According to Girardet, Oxfam and others, billions in aid to the war-torn country have been misused and/or mismanaged, and have produced only limited results.

However, an alternative view is provided by an International Monetary Fund (IMF) report, which said the war-torn country had maintained strong economic growth in the past six years and per capita gross domestic product had increased by 53 percent from $200 in 2001 to $306 in 2007.

"Real growth rates have ranged from 26 percent in 2002/03 to 14 percent in 2005/06," said the IMF's Afghanistan: Poverty Reduction Progress Report 2008, released on 20 February.

Is more military spending the answer? To curb the insurgency some donors have demanded an increase in the number of NATO troops.

In addition to over 10,000 mostly US forces fighting Taliban insurgents there are over 33,000 NATO troops, according to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

To defeat Taliban insurgents the US military spends $65,000 a minute in Afghanistan ($35 billion for 2007), Oxfam International said.

However, aid agencies and some experts doubt an increase in military spending will end the growing violence in Afghanistan: "There are no military solutions to Afghanistan, so rather than spending so massively on keeping NATO troops in the country, more money should be used towards resolving this long-term and critical challenge," Girardet said.

Girardet's assertion was echoed by, Obaidullah, a resident of Kajaki District in Helmand Province. "All we want is a job - to earn some money and support our families."

Roger Cohen: the long haul in Afghanistan

BRUSSELS (International Herald Tribune) 27 February 2008- A whole post-Cold-War European generation has grown up in peace, give or take "some Balkan horror on television," which makes it hard to explain that "it's a political and moral imperative to fight for our core values in the Hindu Kush."

The words are those of Jaap de Hoop Scheffer of the Netherlands, the NATO secretary general. As he utters them, he leans forward, insisting that he doesn't think "Europe is becoming pacifist." But Afghanistan is testing European military resolve. It's the long war. It's Europe's Iraq.

Just back from Afghanistan, where NATO now has some 50,000 troops deployed, de Hoop Scheffer tells me it will be four to five years before international forces can pull back, taking a limited role in support of the emergent Afghan National Army.

"A window of four to five years from now is an interesting window to watch in terms of reaching a situation where our forces are in the background," he says. That takes us to 2013 or thereabouts. I wonder if a Europe more energized by carbon footprints than military footholds has the stomach for that.

Robert Gates, the U.S. defense secretary, has not concealed his concern over European commitment to the better war - better than Iraq, that is.

He's had the honesty to say Iraq dampened European zeal to fight in Afghanistan. He's pleaded for more troops and matériel. He's warned that the alliance risks going "two-tiered," with "some allies willing to fight and die to protect people's security and others who are not."

De Hoop Scheffer is categorical: "I am not overseeing a two-tier alliance." Then he pulls back - "NATO is not monolithic." Among the 26 members there are varying "caveats." For that Latinism read limitations - set by the German, Spanish, Italian and other governments - on when, why and where soldiers will fight and die rather than do the soft-power, school-building, Euro thing.

"As secretary general I will always advocate zero caveats and if zero is not achievable, I will fight for the least possible," he tells me. "But I have to be realistic. If I must choose between forces with caveats or no forces at all, my choice is easily made."

That's understandable: 3,200 German troops in the quiet north are better than none. But as I've said before, it's time for some Bundesmacht, or German war-fighting commitment.

Hauling Afghanistan from the Middle Ages and the Taliban's vestigial clutches will involve every lever of power - economic, social, diplomatic and military. The last of these is not the least. If solidarity dissolves at the point of danger, the war's lost.

Already, Canada, which does front-line stuff in the Afghan south, speaks of withdrawing its 2,500 troops if European allies don't do more. The United States just committed 3,200 additional marines. No better front exists for President Nicolas Sarkozy of France to demonstrate his increased alliance commitment. He should dispatch more French troops.

"We are missing 10 percent of the military requirement we have set ourselves," de Hoop Scheffer says. The shortfall includes close to two dozen training teams for the Afghan Army. "I am not happy until I get what we need. I want 100 percent."

But if NATO gives more, so should President Hamid Karzai. "He can do better in fighting corruption and seeing that non-corrupt police chiefs are appointed," de Hoop Scheffer says.

In one measure of the political disarray, Zalmay Khalilzad, the Afghan-born U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has been getting daily calls from Afghan politicians urging him to run for president next year. He says he won't. Still, the impression is widespread that Karzai's office resembles a tea house.

Karzai blames Pakistan for the Taliban's resurgence. He's not wrong. U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan has been all over the place. De Hoop Scheffer says "NATO must enter into a serious dialogue with a new Pakistani government soon because those destabilizing Pakistan are the same as those destabilizing Afghanistan."

I see Europeans yawning. Can Waziristan really be a threat to the West? O.K., the frontier regions are where Ayman al-Zawahiri and other Al Qaeda leaders are said to be hiding, but they're isolated. As for the Madrid and London bombings, bad stuff happens.

Insouciance is an alliance failure. NATO has failed to prove its relevance to a post-modern European generation. NATO needs rebranding. It needs to be more hip in getting across where a precious peace came from. De Hoop Scheffer talks of using "kitchen table language."

I'd start with an ad campaign in which Poles or Slovaks enthuse about locking in security and freedom through NATO membership. Ask the Macedonians, Albanians and Croats why they're banging on NATO's door. Ukraine and Georgia should also be welcomed one day: Let the Russians, who once subjugated them, bleat.

Afghanistan: Clashes in Helmand leave civilians dead, displaced

LASHKARGAH, 27 February 2008 (IRIN) - At least seven civilians have died in clashes between Taliban insurgents and Afghan and international forces in Kajaki District of Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, according to the US military.

The US military has blamed Taliban insurgents for deliberately disregarding the need to protect civilians and repeatedly harming noncombatants.

Five civilians were killed in a rocket attack by Taliban insurgents on 25 February while the dead bodies of a woman and a child were found after a fierce firefight between insurgents and coalition forces on 23 February.

Zabiullah Mujahid, a purported Taliban spokesperson, rejected the charges and accused international forces of recklessly bombing and killing some 40 civilians in Kajaki.

Preliminary reports indicate that dozens, if not hundreds, of civilians have also been temporarily displaced as a result of the conflict.

"We do not have reliable figures due to access restrictions, but we know some people have left their homes," Gulam Mohammad Ishaqzai, director of the Afghan Red Crescent Society in Helmand, told IRIN on 27 February.

Afghan and international forces launched joint military operations in Kajaki District on 20 February in an effort to clear the area of Taliban who had a "supply line" there, said a press release issued by the US military on 25 February.

Meanwhile, Assadullah Wafa, the governor of Helmand Province, said Afghan and international troops were fighting the Taliban in Kajaki to protect an important hydroelectric power plant, which produces 33MW of electricity for Helmand and Kandahar provinces.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has told the people of Helmand that his government is planning to invest US$180 million to expand and renovate Kajaki's hydroelectric plant, which was built by the USA in 1975 and provides electricity for about two million people.

The insurgents had not only impeded development work on the power plant, but had threatened to blow up the dam, provincial officials said.

On 25 February the US military reported that Kajaki District had been cleared of Taliban insurgents and handed over to the Afghan government.

However, Simon Mellor, a spokesman for British forces in Helmand, said military operations were still ongoing in the area and that many insurgents had either been killed or captured.

Helmand Province is a hotbed of insurgency-related violence; hundreds of people have lost their lives.

Geopolitical Intelligence Report: Al Qaeda, Afghanistan and the Good War

Strategic Forecasting, 25 February 2008 By George Friedman

There has been tremendous controversy over the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which
consistently has been contrasted with Afghanistan. Many of those who
opposed the Iraq war have supported the war in Afghanistan; indeed, they
have argued that among the problems with Iraq is that it diverts resources
from Afghanistan. Afghanistan has been seen as an obvious haven for
terrorism. This has meant the war in Afghanistan often has been perceived
as having a direct effect on al Qaeda and on the ability of radical
Islamists to threaten the United States, while Iraq has been seen as
unrelated to the main war. Supporters of the war in Iraq support the war in
Afghanistan. Opponents of the war in Iraq also support Afghanistan. If
there is a good war in our time, Afghanistan is it.

It is also a war that is in trouble. In the eyes of many, one of the Afghan
war’s virtues has been that NATO has participated as an entity. But NATO
has come under heavy criticism from U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates for
its performance. Some, like the Canadians, are threatening to withdraw
their troops if other alliance members do not contribute more heavily to
the mission. More important, the Taliban have been fighting an effective
and intensive insurgency. Further complicating the situation, the roots of
many of the military and political issues in Afghanistan are found across
the border in Pakistan.

If the endgame in Iraq is murky, the endgame if Afghanistan is invisible.
The United States, its allies and the Kabul government are fighting a
holding action strategically. They do not have the force to destroy the
Taliban — and in counterinsurgency, the longer the insurgents maintain
their operational capability, the more likely they are to win. Further
stiffening the Taliban resolve is the fact that, while insurgents have
nowhere to go, foreigners can always decide to go home.

To understand the status of the war in Afghanistan, we must begin with what
happened between 9/11 and early 2002. Al Qaeda had its primary command and
training facilities in Afghanistan. The Taliban had come to power in a
civil war among Afghans that broke out after the Soviet withdrawal. The
Taliban had close links to the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
While there was an ideological affinity between the two, there was also a
geopolitical attraction. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan concerned
Pakistan gravely. India and the Soviets were aligned, and the Pakistanis
feared being caught in a vise. The Pakistanis thus were eager to cooperate
with the Americans and Saudis in supporting Islamist fighters against the
Soviets. After the Soviets left and the United States lost interest in
Afghanistan, the Pakistanis wanted to fill the vacuum. Their support of the
Taliban served Pakistani national security interests and the religious
proclivities of a large segment of the ISI.

After 9/11, the United States saw Afghanistan as its main problem. Al
Qaeda, which was not Afghan but an international Islamist group, had
received sanctuary from the Taliban. If the United States was to have any
chance of defeating al Qaeda, it would be in Afghanistan. A means toward
that end was destroying the Taliban government. This was not because the
Taliban itself represented a direct threat to the United States but because
al Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan did.

The United States wanted to act quickly and decisively in order to disrupt
al Qaeda. A direct invasion of Afghanistan was therefore not an option.
First, it would take many months to deploy U.S. forces. Second, there was
no practical place to deploy them. The Iranians wouldn’t accept U.S. forces
on their soil and the Pakistanis were far from eager to see the Taliban
toppled. Basing troops in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan along the
northern border of Afghanistan was an option but also a logistical
nightmare. It would be well into the spring of 2002 before any invasion was
possible, and the fear of al Qaeda’s actions in the meantime was intense.

The United States therefore decided not to invade Afghanistan. Instead, it
made deals with groups that opposed the Taliban. In the North, Washington
allied with the Northern Alliance, a group with close ties to the Russians.
In the West, the United States allied with Persian groups under the
influence of Iran. The United States made political arrangements with
Moscow and Tehran to allow access to their Afghan allies. The Russians and
Iranians both disliked the Taliban and were quite content to help. The
mobilized Afghan groups also opposed the Taliban and loved the large sums
of money U.S. intelligence operatives provided them.

These groups provided the force for the mission. The primary U.S. presence
consisted of several hundred troops from U.S. Special Operations Command,
along with CIA personnel. The United States also brought a great deal of
air power, both Navy and Air Force, into the battle. The small U.S. ground
force was to serve as a political liaison with the Afghan groups attacking
the Taliban, to provide access to what weapons were available for the
Afghan forces and, above all, to coordinate air support for the Afghans
against concentrations of Taliban fighters. Airstrikes began a month after
9/11.

While Washington turned out an extraordinary political and covert
performance, the United States did not invade. Rather, it acquired armies
in Afghanistan prepared to carry out the mission and provided them with
support and air power. The operation did not defeat the Taliban. Instead,
it forced them to make a political and military decision.

Political power in Afghanistan does not come from the cities. It comes from
the countryside, while the cities are the prize. The Taliban could defend
the cities only by massing forces to block attacks by other Afghan
factions. But when they massed their forces, the Taliban were vulnerable to
air attacks. After experiencing the consequences of U.S. air power, the
Taliban made a strategic decision. In the absence of U.S. airstrikes, they
could defeat their adversaries and had done so before. While they might
have made a fight of it, given U.S. air power, the Taliban selected a
different long-term strategy.

Rather than attempt to defend the cities, the Taliban withdrew, dispersed
and made plans to regroup. Their goal was to hold enough of the countryside
to maintain their political influence. As in their campaign against the
Soviets, the Taliban understood that their Afghan enemies would not pursue
them, and that over time, their ability to conduct small-scale operations
would negate the value of U.S. airpower and draw the Americans into a
difficult fight on unfavorable terms.

The United States was not particularly disturbed by the outcome. It was not
after the Taliban but al Qaeda. It appears — and much of this remains murky
— that the command cell of al Qaeda escaped from Afghan forces and U.S.
Special Operations personnel at Tora Bora and slipped across the border
into Pakistan. Exactly what happened is unclear, but it is clear that al
Qaeda’s command cell was not destroyed. The fight against al Qaeda produced
a partial victory. Al Qaeda clearly was disrupted and relocated — and was
denied its sanctuary. A number of its operatives were captured, further
degrading its operational capability.

The Afghan campaign therefore had these outcomes:

* Al Qaeda was degraded but not eliminated.
* The Taliban remained an intact fighting force, but the United States
never really expected them to commit suicide by massing for U.S. B-52
strikes.
* The United States had never invaded Afghanistan and had made no plans to
occupy it.
* Afghanistan was never the issue, and the Taliban were a subordinate
matter.
* After much of al Qaeda’s base lost its sanctuary in Afghanistan and had
to relocate to Pakistan, the war in Afghanistan became a sideshow for the
U.S. military.

Over time, the United States and NATO brought about 50,000 troops to
Afghanistan. Their hope was that Hamid Karzai’s government would build a
force that could defeat the Taliban. But the problem was that, absent U.S.
and NATO forces, the Taliban had managed to defeat the forces now arrayed
against them once before, in the Afghan civil war. The U.S. commitment of
troops was enough to hold the major cities and conduct offensive operations
that kept the Taliban off balance, but the United States could not possibly
defeat them. The Soviets had deployed 300,000 troops in Afghanistan and
could not defeat the mujahideen. NATO, with 50,000 troops and facing the
same shifting alliance of factions and tribes that the Soviets couldn’t
pull together, could not pacify Afghanistan.

But vanquishing the Taliban simply was not the goal. The goal was to
maintain a presence that could conduct covert operations in Pakistan
looking for al Qaeda and keep al Qaeda from returning to Afghanistan. Part
of this goal could be achieved by keeping a pro-American government in
Kabul under Karzai. The strategy was to keep al Qaeda off balance, preserve
Karzai and launch operations against the Taliban designed to prevent them
from becoming too effective and aggressive. The entire U.S. military would
have been insufficient to defeat the Taliban; the war in Afghanistan thus
was simply a holding action.

The holding action was made all the more difficult in that the Taliban
could not be isolated from their sources of supply or sanctuary; Pakistan
provided both. It really didn’t matter whether this was because President
Pervez Musharraf’s government intended to play both sides, whether factions
inside the Pakistani military maintained close affinities with the Taliban
or whether the Pakistani government and army simply couldn’t control tribal
elements loyal to al Qaeda. What did matter was that all along the Afghan
border — particularly in southern Afghanistan — supplies flowed in from
Pakistan, and the Taliban moved into sanctuaries in Pakistan for rest and
regrouping.

The Taliban was and is operating on their own terrain. They have excellent
intelligence about the movements of NATO forces and a flexible and
sufficient supply line allowing them to maintain and increase operations
and control of the countryside. Having retreated in 2001, the Taliban
systematically regrouped, rearmed and began operating as a traditional
guerrilla force with an increased penchant for suicide attacks.

As in Vietnam, the challenge in fighting a guerrilla force is to cut it off
from its supplies. The United States failed to interdict the Ho Chi Minh
Trail, and that allowed men and materiel to move into South Vietnam until
the United States lost the appetite for war. In Afghanistan, it is the same
problem compounded. First, the lines of supply into Pakistan are even more
complex than the Ho Chi Minh trail was. Second, the country that provides
the supplies is formally allied with the United States. Pakistan is
committed both to cutting those lines of supply and aiding the United
States in capturing al Qaeda in its Northwest. That is the primary mission,
but the subsidiary mission remains keeping the Taliban within tolerable
levels of activity and preventing them from posing a threat to more and
more of the Afghan countryside and cities. There has been a great deal of
focus on Pakistan’s assistance in northwestern Afghanistan against al
Qaeda, but much less on the line of supply maintaining the Taliban in
southern Afghanistan. And as Pakistan has attempted to pursue a policy of
balancing its relations with the Taliban and with the United States, the
Pakistani government now faces a major jihadist insurgency on its own turf.

Afghanistan therefore is not — and in some ways never has been — the center
of gravity of the challenge facing the United States. Occupying Afghanistan
is inconceivable without a fundamental shift in Pakistan’s policies or
capabilities. But forcing Pakistan to change its policies in southern
Afghanistan really is pointless, since the United States doesn’t have
enough forces there to take advantage of a Pakistani shift, and Washington
doesn’t care about the Taliban in the long run.

The real issue is the hardest to determine. Is al Qaeda prime — not al
Qaeda enthusiasts or sympathizers who are able to carry out local suicide
bombings, but the capable covert operatives we saw on 9/11 — still
operational? And even if it is degraded, given enough time, will al Qaeda
be able to regroup and ramp up its operational capability? If so, then the
United States must maintain its posture in Afghanistan, as limited and
unbalanced as it is. The United States might even need to consider
extending the war to Pakistan in an attempt to seal the border if the
Taliban continue to strengthen. But if al Qaeda is not operational, then
the rationale for guarding Kabul and Karzai becomes questionable.

We have no way of determining whether al Qaeda remains operational; we are
not sure anyone can assess that with certainty. Certainly, we have not seen
significant operations for a long time, and U.S. covert capabilities should
have been able to weaken al Qaeda over the past seven years. But if al
Qaeda remains active, capable and in northwestern Pakistan, then the U.S.
presence in Afghanistan will continue.

As the situation in Iraq settles down — and it appears to be doing so —
more focus will be drawn to Afghanistan, the war that even opponents of
Iraq have acknowledged as appropriate and important. But it is important to
understand what this war consists of: It is a holding action against an
enemy that cannot be defeated (absent greater force than is available) with
open lines of supply into a country allied with the United States. It is a
holding action waiting for certain knowledge of the status of al Qaeda,
knowledge that likely will not come. Afghanistan is a war without exit and
a war without victory. The politics are impenetrable, and it is even
difficult to figure out whether allies like Pakistan are intending to help
or are capable of helping.

Thus, while it may be a better war than Iraq in some sense, it is not a war
that can be won or even ended. It just goes on.

Shabana's story of hope against the odds

By Dawood Azami - BBC News, Rome

Shabana, a three-year-old Afghan girl, was born with a potentially deadly facial tumour.

But as part of a pioneering project, she has been flown from Kabul to Rome where she is being operated on by a team of Western surgeons.

Shabana suffers from a particular form of skin disorder in which tumours develop along nerves, causing severe damage and premature death if left untreated.

The disease, called neurofibromatosis, is common in Afghanistan. But due to lack of medical expertise and modern equipment, it is claiming the lives of many children across the country.

Shabana arrived with her father, Janat Gul, from Kabul to Rome following a campaign by Italian photojournalist, Kash Gabriele Torsello.

Mr Torsello, 37, first met Shabana by chance in 2005 while photographing in Kabul.

He organised Shabana's first operation in the city when she was aged just nine-months-old and suffering from a severe facial abscess on her face.

Mr Torsello has visited Afghanistan several times.

While documenting the everyday life of "ordinary" Afghans, he was kidnapped in Helmand province in October 2006.

Following negotiations by the Italian foreign ministry and Afghan authorities, he was released after 23 days.

Since his release, Mr Torsello has been working to develop a programme of medical and cultural exchanges between Afghanistan and Europe.

Cultural dialogue

"Shabana's operation marks the beginning of direct collaborations between Italian and Afghan hospitals," said Mr Torsello.

"The little girl's surgical operation offered an important opportunity for European and Afghan hospitals to come together and collaborate with each other."

Shabana is the youngest of Janat Gul's four children.

This is the first time that Shabana and her 37-year-old father have travelled outside Afghanistan.

"It is a blessing in disguise. When God wants to help you, He provides all the means," said Janat Gul, who works loading and unloading trucks in Kabul.

"I am a poor person and I couldn't dream of this happening to us. I wish we had all these facilities in our own country."

It is hoped that Shabana's operation will prove a milestone in a series of medical exchanges between Afghanistan and Italy, eventually enabling Afghanistan's own doctors to treat patients with similar conditions.

This is the objective of Mr Torsello's campaign. "We try to help Afghans help themselves and achieve independence in an effort that can be much quicker and cheaper," he said.

The photographer's ongoing picture exhibition in Italy is part of a project focusing on comprehension, acceptance and respect for different cultures and people.

Mr Torsello has worked in other Muslim countries where he embraced local cultures and accepted Islam. "Our aim is to encourage Europe and Afghanistan to erase socio-political and cultural barriers and come closer," he said.

Afghanistan and Italy established formal links during the rule of the reformist Afghan King, Amanullah Khan (1919-1929), who visited the country in 1924 and later lived there his exile.

Muhammad Zaher Shah, another Afghan King, received Italian medical treatment in 1973, and remained in Rome for 30 years before returning to Afghanistan in 2002.

Shabana's operation was carried out by an expert medical team under the direction of surgeon Fabio Abenavoli, president of the charity Smile Train Italia.

"We work closely with Afghan doctors and try to share our expertise with them," said Dr Abenavoli. "The ultimate aim is to enable Afghan doctors to cure many other Shabanas in Afghanistan."

The 1979 Soviet invasion, followed by a civil war, destroyed much of Afghanistan's infrastructure, including its health care system.

Since the fall of the Taleban regime six years ago, health care provision has improved in some areas, largely thanks to the aid given by the international community.

But hospitals and clinics still lack much-needed modern medical equipment and a big number of local doctors are not well trained or qualified to deal with complex medical conditions.

Those Afghans who can afford the costs go to neighbouring countries, especially Pakistan and India, for medical treatment.

But many others still suffer and die from common curable diseases. In a country where the infant and child mortality rate is among the highest in the world, Shabana's trip to Italy is a rare event.

[Disclaimer: The content of this news bulletin does not necessarily reflect the view or policy of the Afghan Government, unless specifically stated as such. The collection of articles and commentaries from Afghan and international news sources is provided for informational purposes, and accuracy of the news is the responsibility of the original source.]